Scarlet Stars
by OreozFox
Summary: (HxH AU, A Breaking Silence story) After Pairo lost his bretheren and his eyesight, he was accepted into a loving family and given a second chance at a normal life. But what about his only surviving comrade? What exactly happened during the rest of Kurapika's youth after he lost everything?
1. Chapter 1- The Red-Eyed Boy

_Kurapika's eyes snapped open, his chest heaving with ragged breaths. Every joint ached, and his damp clothes stuck to his skin. Shivering, he closed his eyes again._ It was just a dream, _he thought, ignoring the lump forming in his throat._ The nightmare already happened.

Everyone's already dead.

* * *

"Are you _still_ saving all that money for those cheap paints in the store?" Wren asked from under the rickety contraption he was tinkering with.

"Are _you_ still building that… thing?" I retorted.

"Duh. This is different, Lyra. A glider that could travel as far as the boats would be revolutionary! What're a few paints gonna do?"

"Those 'cheap paints' you speak of were made from materials you can't get in places like this, so they probably cost just as much as all the parts of your glider put together. Besides, I told you I was going to paint your glider when it's done. You don't want it staying plain forever, do you?"

"Okay, Lyra, you win." Wren sighed, wriggling out from under the glider and casting his tool aside. Wren may have been the typical annoying brother, but for a kid who wasn't even ten years old yet, he really knew his stuff. He'd built small gliders and planes and other dirigibles which hung from the ceiling of his room, but now he was working on the real thing. "By the way, if you're going out to the beach right now, could you get me a couple of more planks from the store on your way back? My allowance is in the jar."

"Sure thing." I replied.

"Thanks." And with that, he picked up a wrench and disappeared back under the framework of wood and bolts.

* * *

The boardwalk creaked under my feet as I ran along the shoreline, shouting hello to the departing crews of fishermen. They called back to me, waving.

This harbor was my home, where the air always held the lingering scent of sea salt. Around the harbor was the small town where my family and I lived, and past it a deep forest that seemed to go on forever. My destination was the beach, the place I always went to for inspiration.

As I stopped to catch my breath, I glanced up at the sky and then back at the forest. I heard something. Something crashing through the trees, sending flocks of startled birds into the sky. I took a step back, squinting at the treeline.

Suddenly, something came bursting from the bushes. It was a person, about my age at that. His blonde hair hung loosely in his face, which was streaked with sweat. Just a suddenly as he'd entered, he tripped, sending him sprawling, tumbling down the hill in my direction.

Just a few yards away from me, he landed with an _oof!_ , kicking up a spray of sand. I held up an arm to shield my face.

As I approached him, he got up on his hands and knees, coughing and sputtering. When he looked up and spotted me coming towards him, he jumped back, giving me a fierce, threatening glare, his eyes wild, and… and _red._

I knelt to his level. "Um, hello? I'm not gonna hurt you, alright? My name's Lyra, what's yours?"

The boy sprang to his feet. "You stay away from me!" He pointed a dirt-smudged finger at me. "I trust no one, you hear me?! _No one!_ "

"What is your deal?" I asked, an edge of annoyance in my voice. "I already told you I wouldn't hurt you, so…" I noticed him swaying a bit, and then I noticed one of his sleeves were torn and caked with dried blood. "Y-you're hurt… Let me see…" I brushed my fingers against his pointing hand. He tried to jerk it away, but I grabbed it tightly.

"Release me! Release me!" The boy snarled, trying to yank his uninjured arm from my grasp. When I clenched tighter, he suddenly yanked my arm up to his face and _bit me._

"Ouch!" I yelped. "Are you insane?! Let go!" He only bit down harder, now breaking the skin. Not knowing what else to do, I held up my book and struck him on the back of the head with it. In his condition, it was more than enough to knock him out. He released my hand, landing facedown in the sand.

Grimacing, I examined the bloody bite mark on my wrist before looking back down at the boy. I reached out a tentative foot and prodded his side, but he didn't stir. Holding my breath and brandishing the book over my head in case he jumped me again, I dropped to my knees and slowly rolled him over. Lifting a shred of his tattered sleeve, I saw a deep cut tracing from just below his shoulder to a few inches from his wrist. It certainly wasn't the cleanest cut in the world, and his whole arm around it was stained red. _No wonder he was so weak, he must've been losing blood for days._ _If he doesn't get that sewn up or something quick, he's as good as dead._ I sighed. "Alright, asylum escapee, let's go." I reached down to try and lift him up, which wasn't too hard considering I could feel every one of his ribs.

" _Hey, Lyra are you okay?!_ " I looked up to see Wren along with a couple fishermen standing on the edge of the boardwalk. "Mr. Houck said he heard shouting!"

"Y-Yeah, I'm okay, but I'm not sure this boy is!" I called back. "He's really hurt!"

"Did you pick up my planks?!"

"Wren, I've been gone ten minutes! You're like a broken record!"

"Speaking of broken, I don't think that boy's arm in bending the right way!"


	2. Chapter 2- Lazuli Harbor

_He had been passing through a town when he heard. Some people were murmuring to each other, and he would have moved on, had it not been for the mention of his clan reaching his ears._

 _They said that the clan had been found dead, every single one of them. Murdered by the Phantom Troupe, they said._

 _He had taken off so quickly he left his bird behind, bolting out of the town and into the woods. Sensing his panic, the bird had tried to follow him, but the sound of its footfalls eventually faded._

 _It couldn't be true. It_ wasn't _true. He would arrive in Lukuso and the clan would be the same as it was when he left. He ran for an amount of time he didn't keep track of, repeating this in his head._

 _But at last, he'd stumbled into the lush forest, his legs shaking from exhaustion, his chest heaving, his hands and knees bruised and scraped from when he'd fallen, his eyes a brilliant red._

" _Oh, no…" Were the only words he'd uttered as the red eyes scanned the bloody bodies scattered every which way, each one missing their brilliant eyes. "No, no, no, no, no…" He had sunk to his knees in utter disbelief. It had to be a dream. He sat there, praying he'd wake up._ Just wake up…

 _And when he finally accepted that this was real, he'd broken down, wailing and crying at the realization that he was now alone._

 _He was alone._

* * *

Kurapika's eyes snapped open, bolting upright before his sight adjusted. Pain coursed through his body, but he realized it was a lot duller than before.

He was in a bed against the wall of a small room filled with shelves of all kinds of medicine. Kurapika himself had bandages dotting his body, and his previously injured arm was wrapped in a sling.

 _What is this place? Where am I?_ He wondered, getting up from the bed and heading for the door. _I suppose it doesn't matter, I should get out of here._

"Not so fast." The voice startled him. He whirled around to see someone was leaning against one of the filled shelves. It was a man, middle aged and balding. He wore glasses that glared in the sunlight shining through the window. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Who are you?"

"Me? I'm Dr. Morris Braelyn. But you can just call me Dr. Moe. The better question is who are _you?_ "

"Not that it's any of your business, but my name is Kurapika. It doesn't matter, though. I've got to go." Kurapika said in a low voice, reaching again for the door.

"Go where? Where exactly do you come from, Kurapika? Lyra told me you came out of the woods near the beach."

Kurapika bit back a growl of annoyance at the amount of questions he was getting. "I cannot tell you where I came from. There's nothing there anymore."

"Nonetheless, you can't go back to wandering around with injuries like that, or they'll open up again and become infected." Dr. Moe said in a tone that showed no room for argument. "Now, I think it's okay for you to get out of bed, but if your arm starts bleeding again, come back to my office and I'll look at it."

"And what makes you think I won't leave anyway?"

"I just advise that you relax until your injuries get better. Then you don't have to stay here. But why don't you just go for a walk, get to know the nice folks around here? This is a seaside town, and the ocean air is good for your health." Dr. Moe said in a gentler, more chipper tone. "It might also lift that sour mood of yours."

"I didn't come here to relax, you know. If this seaside town is so nice, why don't the people here just leave me alone?!" Kurapika snarled, throwing the door open, stalking out, and slamming it behind him. _Idiot! He just met me and he's acting like he has authority over me! I don't care what he-_ "Wha?!"

He was met with three curious faces as he stepped out of the office. Two were boys, one a girl, the same girl he'd met on the beach.

"What do you want?" Kurapika demanded.

"Lyra, you liar! He doesn't have red eyes!" One of the boys, with spiky black hair, said.

"Yeah, and they're hardly glowing, either." The other boy, whose hair was a dark shade of blue, added.

"Well, they were!" Lyra huffed. "Anyway," she turned to Kurapika with a small,friendly smile, "I'm glad to see you're better."

"Well, I'm sorry that you wasted your time on me. I'm leaving." Kurapika muttered, trying to slip away.

"So soon?" The spiky-haired boy asked. "But we want to know where you came from!"

"Use your imagination." Kurapika hissed, pushing past them. "Maybe in the next town people will mind their own business."

Lyra raised an eyebrow. "'Next town'? I hate to burst your bubble, but this is Lazuli Harbor. There is no 'next town' if you're planning to travel on foot."

"Then I'll go on one of those ships."

"Uh, I don't think any of the captains would drop someone in your condition off in some random place, unless you've got family or something waiting for you there." The blue-haired boy pointed out.

The last part was a spark on dry tinder for Kurapika. "You can't just expect me to sit here for who-knows-how-long! This is already hard enough, so just let me be!" He inwardly cursed his voice cracking with emotion as he spoke, but did not wait for a response. Instead, he took off into the street, shoving past people as he looked for an exit.

 _I have to get out of here… I'm not just settling into the outside world._

 _If I hadn't done that once, you'd all still be here now._


End file.
